Improving speed of GIST indexes in PostgreSQL 9.2   

This is about improvements to GIST indexes that I hope to see in PostgreSQL 9.2. One is a patch for possible inclusion in PostgreSQL 9.2 called SP-GiST, Space-Partitioned GiST created by Teodor Sigaev and Oleg Bartunov whose basic technique is described in SP-GiST: An Extensible Database Index for Supporting Space Partitioning Trees. For those who don't know Teodor and Oleg, they are the great fellows that brought us many other GiST and GIN goodnesses that many specialty PostgreSQL extensions enjoy -- e.g. PostGIS, trigrams, ltree, pgsphere, hstore, full-text search to name a few.

Another is a recent one just committed by Alexander Korotkov which I just recently found out about on New node splitting algorithm for GIST and admit I don't know enough about to judge. I have to admit to being very clueless when it comes to the innards of index implementations so don't ask me any technical details. It's one of those short-comings among the trillion others I have that I have learned to accept will probably never change.

What the SP-GIST patch will provide in terms of performance and speed was outlined in PGCon 2011: SP-GiST - a new indexing infrastructure for PostgreSQL Space-Partitioning trees in PostgreSQL.

What it provides specifically for PostGIS is summarized in Paul's call for action noted below. As a passionate user of PostGIS ,ltree, tsearch, and hstore, I'm pretty excited about these patches and other GIST and general index enhancements and there potential use in GIST dependent extensions. I'm hoping to see these spring to life in PostgreSQL 9.2 and think it will help to further push the envelope of where PostgreSQL can go as a defacto platform for cutting-edge technology and scientific research. I think one of PostgreSQL's greatest strength is its extensible index API.

Paul's PostGIS newsgroup note about seeking funding for faster GIST indexes , work done so far on SP-GIST and call for further action is rebroadcast in it's entirety here.

Thanks to the sponsorship of Michigan Technological University, we now
have 50% of the work complete. There is a working patch at the
commitfest https://commitfest.postgresql.org/action/patch_view?id=631
which provides quad-tree and kd-tree indexes.

However, there is a problem: unless the patch is reviewed and goes
through more QA/QC, it'll never get into PostgreSQL proper. In case
you think I am kidding: we had a patch for KNN searching ready for the
9.0 release, but it wasn't reviewed in time, so we had to wait all the
way through the 9.1 cycle to get it.

I am looking for sponsors in the $5K to $10K range to complete this
work. If you use PostgreSQL in your business, this is a chance to add
a basic capability that may help you in all kinds of ways you don't
expect. We're talking about faster geospatial indexes here, but this
facility will also radically speed any partitioned space. (For
example, the suffix-tree, which can search through URLs incredibly
fast. Another example, you can use a suffix tree to very efficiently
index geohash strings. Interesting.)

If you think there's a possibility, please contact me and I will send
you a prospectus you can take to your manager. Let's make this happen
folks!

Paul